Did the screening receive the reaction you expected?
Christopher Landon: "In a screening like that, it’s hard to gauge because it’s so sparsely populated. When we’ve had a couple larger screenings, we’ve gotten more of a sense of what the audience is reacting to, what they’re not. It’s usually the same kind of stuff. They start laughing a little bit as they ease into the tone of the movie. By the second story, you get a lot of laughter. Then obviously by the end of the film, all of that laughter goes right out."
There was one guy laughing the entire time.
Christopher Landon: "That’s the thing about the movie. Admittedly, when I wrote it, I knew it was specific. The humor is very specific and it’s very dark. It’s a polarizing movie. People either love it and are in on the joke and think it’s really, really funny and go for the sort of Twilight Zone-y vibe that we’re going for. Then other people just get really upset. When we were testing the movie I got really angry comment cards. People were very upset."
I can’t imagine testing this movie. Did you have to?
Christopher Landon: "We had to. We weren’t necessarily testing. We knew what it was and we knew we weren’t going to win everybody over with it. We were really testing the order of the stories as well to try and feel out what felt appropriate. The original order was completely different. The very first story in the script was the last story in the movie. We started with that one. It was too heavy, too dark and too upsetting. There’s this almost arc to the film. It starts out where it’s dramatic but it’s got its moments of humor. Then it become a lot more pronounced humor-wise, and then it kind of goes back down."
Is the tone just weird enough but not so outrageous to be out there?
Christopher Landon: "Yeah, what I wanted to do was I’m a big short story fan and I’m a big fan of anthology. I think it’s an incredibly under-serviced sub-genre, if you will. I don’t have very many films I can even reference. I like that kind of compact storytelling. For me, I didn’t want it to be so crazy and outlandish that you can’t [relate]. Part of the reason why people laugh and part of the reason people do get into the film is because they are relating. If it was too crazy or too stylized or too over the top, then you lose your audience and I’m just being weird for the sake of being weird."
Is the mixed blessing of that format that some stories will be favorites and some won’t be as good?
Christopher Landon: "Yeah, very much so. That’s part of the fun for me. It can be sort of a mixed blessing, but it’s conversationally engaging. It makes the audience very proactive. When they leave the theater, it’s fun to stand in the lobby and listen to people arguing over which was their favorite and why. It’s always very different. It’s really never the same. The one that’s sort of consistently pointed out is the last one, I think because it has an emotional impact for people. It’s just really funny. My mom for instance hates the second story. Hates it with the finger. She’s just like, 'It’s dumb.' Literally that’s what my mom told me: 'It’s dumb.' I was like, 'Yeah, but mom, everybody laughs.'"
What were Zoe Saldana’s thoughts on the syndrome her character deals with?
Christopher Landon: "When she came in, she sat down, she had this very serious demeanor and she said, 'You know, I don’t want to play this part but I feel like I have to play this part.' She was fascinated with the character and she was intrigued. She had just done Avatar and Star Trek and had been in front of green screens for days on end. I think she was intrigued and excited with the idea of jumping into this role and really challenging herself as an actress because she was really scared to play the part. It really took a lot for her to go there."
Even from a female perspective, I’m sure there are some who go through that way of dealing with a trauma, but it’s hard to even have a conversation about it.
Christopher Landon: "Exactly. Once or twice I had some comment about it and some people were saying that it was borderline misogynistic. For me, the story is about power dynamics. She completely emasculates him. She takes everything from him, even though she’s pursuing the same experience. When I wrote it, I wanted it to be the anti-Jodie Foster victimization story because I’ve seen that 1,000 times. To get to play on the audiences expectations of those films, those rape/revenge whatever tales, in my mind - and it may sound askew - to me it’s a very feminist story. It’s just seen through a very different way. Zoe got that as well. When I get that from people I’m like, 'Actually, you’re kind of missing the point. You’ve got to watch it again.''
Was Shannen Doherty doing an accent in the film?
Christopher Landon: "The accent thing comes up a lot with people. Shannen came on and she was like, 'I want to do a really bad British accent like Madonna. I think it’ll be really pretentious.' She just wanted to make the character her own. I was like, 'Okay, go with it.' So I wrote in that line which was a safety line when Nicholas calls her out and says, 'Your accent is fake,' because everyone is thinking it the whole time."
Did you want to get the Spielberg shot in your directorial debut, the zoom/dolly perspective shift?
Christopher Landon: "It just felt organic to the moment. It’s the hardest shot in the whole movie too. It drove me insane. They call them zollies and they’re really annoying. It’s the button on the one trick pony. That story is a one trick pony which is why I love it because it makes people laugh over and over and over again, and they’re laughing at the same thing."
With the third story, what were your thoughts on pushing both gay and African-American stereotypes in the same story?
Christopher Landon: "As an umbrella statement to that question, I took the South Park clause on this movie which is I make every single person a target. Everyone’s a stereotype. The funny thing is it’s more revealing that we don’t look at the characters in the first story as stereotypes, even though they are. They’re stereotypes of white people but we don’t see that because we’re white and we’re accustomed to not being stereotyped, but they are. There’s a caricature-ish element to everyone in the film. I’ve gotten some flack for the gay story especially because it’s at this critical time, there’s a lot of struggle in the community to be recognized in a more positive light. For me, the joke of the story is it doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight. If you’re a sh*tty parent, you’re a sh*tty parent."
I was more shocked by the African part.
Christopher Landon: "Again, it’s the joke of buying a child from some remote [region]. It plays on the joke but hopefully people won’t take it as a terribly insensitive piece."
Are there connections between stories we can find or did you want to avoid that?
Christopher Landon: "Yes, there are connections. It’s fun because some are clearly more overt than others. The Shannen Doherty connection between the two stories is pretty obvious. Then you have Tuck, who is the stinky finger girl’s father is the gardener in Homey Hills who gets put on the stand. The guy that Dedra has sex with in the back of the Escalade in the first story, he’s in the last story. His dad is the shop owner that Zoe works at. If you look in one of the shots, there’s a framed photo with him in his graduation cap and gown shaking his dad’s hand. That was part of the fun. I wanted it to be kind of subtle. I wanted it to be like we’re all six degrees of separation."
How is Paranormal Activity 3 going?
Christopher Landon: "Paranormal 3 is moving forward without me. I had a great time doing it. It’s awesome. It’s kind of a thankless job as a writer to have because everyone views it as real and nonscripted. There’s really no glory in that job. For me, I started getting a lot of the calls for this found footage genre and I wanted to stay a little bit out of that and stick to the narrative stuff. I’m writing some other stuff. I’m doing a movie for Paramount, a thriller based on a book called Wake. After I get through that and some other writing obligations, I want to go and make another movie."
Does that mean you didn’t write Paranormal Activity 3 or you finished it and then moved on?
Christopher Landon: "No, they’ve just gotten started. We talked about it and I said I didn’t want to do it. I respectfully declined."
The thing that was cool about 2 is it created a continuity and mythology out of this gimmick.
Christopher Landon: "It was fun. The mythology angle was a lot of fun and really starting to get into that stuff. There were little tidbits that had been dropped in the first movie and when we got together, we really wanted to expand that. I hope that’s the direction they’re going to ultimately go for in the third one."
What’s Wake about?
Christopher Landon: "Wake is about a teenage girl with a rare form of narcolepsy. If she’s within 10 yards of someone sleeping, she passes out and goes into their dreams."
Is there such a condition that involves passing out in the presence of someone sleeping?
Christopher Landon: "No, there’s no rare form of narcolepsy for that. We created that rare form of narcolepsy for the project. It’s really fun. It’s a cool little movie."
When Inception came out, were you watching it closely and realized you were okay?
Christopher Landon: "I was fine. A) we’re after a completely different audience. B) it’s very, very far from what we’re doing. This is a very straight up kind of thriller, but it’s not as heady and cerebral as that. We get to have a little more fun, I think, in terms of stylistically approaching dreams. They’re all insanely different because no one’s dream is alike."
And it doesn’t have to simulate a reality in yours?
Christopher Landon: "No, not at all. That’s what I mean. Some dreams look like animation."
Does that mean they will be animated?
Christopher Landon: "Some of them, I think so. I hope so."
Are you hoping to direct that?
Christopher Landon: "No. I’d like to be wishful and try and push myself into that, but we’ll see. It’s an expensive movie so I don't know if they’re going to let me do it."
Could a director come in and revamp something you’ve written?
Christopher Landon: "Well, that’s what happens on every film and that’s part of the fun though. Now that I’ve done some movies, obviously I have my vision but part of what I love about this job is just getting to work with other people and seeing how they interpret something. Especially when you’re writing, it’s great. It can go either way. It can be better, infinitely better than what you would imagine or awful."
